| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: to drive my sisters about, and look like a fool. No, if you
do not go, d-- me if I do. I only go for the sake of driving you."
"That is a compliment which gives me no pleasure."
But her words were lost on Thorpe, who had turned
abruptly away.
The three others still continued together,
walking in a most uncomfortable manner to poor Catherine;
sometimes not a word was said, sometimes she was again attacked
with supplications or reproaches, and her arm was still
linked within Isabella's, though their hearts were at war.
At one moment she was softened, at another irritated;
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: departure, shutting the parlor-door carefully behind him. Turning
up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the
house, and had barely reached the street-gate, when he was
recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a
thimbled finger against the parlor window.
"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken
face through the window-panes. "There is no need of going for the
child's parents!"
"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he
re-entered the parlor. "You would bring her in; and now our
poor--dear-beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!"
The Snow Image |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: "She was six."
"O Philip!" cried Kate; "but I might have known it. Did she
love you very much?"
Hope looked up, her eyes full of mild reproach at the
possibility of doubting any child's love for Philip. He had
been her betrothed for more than a year, during which time she
had habitually seen him wooing every child he had met as if it
were a woman,--which, for Philip, was saying a great deal.
Happily they had in common the one trait of perfect amiability,
and she knew no more how to be jealous than he to be constant.
"Lili was easily won," he said. "Other things being equal,
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: trouble in flying owing to the tendency of snowy earth and sky
to merge into one mystical opalescent void with no visible horizon
to mark the junction of the two.
At length we resolved to carry
out our original plan of flying five hundred miles eastward with
all four exploring planes and establishing a fresh sub-base at
a point which would probably be on the smaller continental division,
as we mistakenly conceived it. Geological specimens obtained there
would be desirable for purposes of comparison. Our health so far
had remained excellent - lime juice well offsetting the steady
diet of tinned and salted food, and temperatures generally above
At the Mountains of Madness |
